“So, you’re staying awhile?” Ethan murmured, as though he needed to hear the words out of my mouth one last time. I nodded.

“For now,” I promised him. “I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future but…yeah, for now, I don’t see why I should go anywhere else.”

And I was starting to wonder why I would even try.

“Good.” Ethan grinned, and the two of us lay there in bed, looking at each other as though we could find answers to questions that we had never even known we needed to ask in each other’s eyes.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. The two of us jumped apart, still hyper-alert after what had just happened between us.

“Ethan? Are you guys still in there?” Anton’s voice came through the door and I felt a shudder of panic run through me.

Would Anton be jealous? Angry? I had no idea what the deal was in situations like this one but it seemed unlikely that none of those feelings would bubble to the surface. My stomach cramped at the very thought of walking out to see any of them with another woman and a rush of guilt swept through me.

“Yeah,” Ethan called back, his voice careful.

“You need to get out here,” Anton replied. “Now. We have a problem.”

Ethan and I exchanged glances as we rolled out of bed and grabbed for our clothes, quickly getting dressed again; it was still freezing outside and I hugged the enormous shirt tight around my body, trying to warm myself up.

I took a deep breath and went for the door, but Ethan got there first, beating me out into the main room. I followed him, eyes on the floor, and slowly looked up; Anton had a chilly, tight expression on his face, while Rafe was pacing back and forth like he was trying to work off nervous energy. Luke was standing in between them, his hair a little damp and his cheeks flushed, leading me to believe he’d just come indoors.

“What’s going on?” Ethan asked, looking between the three of them. Anton glanced at me, then at Ethan, and finally spoke.

“Luke was out and he thinks he caught the scent of another pack.” Anton sighed heavily, like this was the worst news he could have imagined dragging up. He didn’t seem to notice or care that Ethan and I had clearly been engaged in something physical. In fact, that was the last thing on his mind by the looks of it, and relief skittered through me. Too bad it was short-lived.

Luke picked up where Anton had left off, diving in to fill in the gaps.

“It seemed like at least a dozen males,” he explained grimly. “Maybe more. Enough that the scent was heavy and I could tell they were heading in this direction.”

“Maybe they were from my pack?” I suggested, but Luke shook his head.

“I would have recognized the scent,” he pointed out. “Trust me, these guys had nothing to do with you.”

“So what do we do?” Ethan asked. “How long do we have?”

“I don’t know – a matter of hours, if that.” Luke scrubbed at his stubbled jaw. “I say we shift, get ready for a fight if it comes to us.”

“A fight?” My mouth dropped open in surprise. “You really think that’s a good idea?”

“I don’t think we have much of a choice,” Luke shot back, not meeting my gaze, like he couldn’t be bothered to look at me. “They could just be making their way past, and if they are we’ll be fine, but we don’t want to be caught out if they’re coming for something else.”

“You think they might know about us?” Rafe furrowed his brow, finally speaking, and his voice was lower than I’d heard it before – less jovial and effervescent, more careful and quiet. Like he was worried about attracting the attention of the oncoming herd.

“I have no clue but I don’t particularly want to take any risks,” Luke replied. “We need to be ready.”

“I think you’re right.” Anton nodded. “We need to prepare for the worst case scenario here.”

Anton glanced over in my direction, and I saw it in his eyes, however briefly – that he was wondering, as I was, if this danger would have presented itself if I wasn’t in the picture. I honestly had no idea. Maybe they were after me, maybe they weren’t, but a pack of males like that could well have caught my scent and were now coming to pick me up and try to make me one of their own. The thought made me shudder, and I realized with a stab to the chest that this place was my home now – the thought of being dragged from it, being taken from these men who had so welcomed me into their lives—most of them, at any rate—was painful, even just in theory.

“Come on, let’s get ready to go.”

Luke slapped his hands on his thighs and I could see the glimmer of excitement in his eyes, like he was jonesing for a fight and was looking forward to working out some of his excess energy on whoever was headed in our direction. The five of us turned away from each other and began to strip down – even though it was more a formality than anything else at that point, since I’d seen them all naked anyway. Luke glanced over in my direction, and paused, his shirt off and his hands on his belt.

“What is she doing?” he asked, directing the question at everyone in the room other than me. It made me bristle. Why was he acting this way when the rest of his brothers had been so welcoming of me? I had to remind myself that I knew precisely why, that he still suffered knowing what they had all walked away from, but it was hard to keep that in mind when he was acting the rude jack-off to me.

“I’m going to shift,” I replied, meeting his gaze steadily. I was still fully dressed, thank goodness, otherwise I would have found myself unable to take myself seriously as I stared him down.

“No, you’re not,” he snorted, his voice firm. “You need to stay here. Last thing we need is to have to worry about you while we’re out there if it does come to a fight.”

“You really think I’m just going to sit here and wait for you to come home?” I snapped back in his direction. “I’m a good hunter. I kept up with you when we took down that caribou, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, but this is different,” he argued. “You know what male packs can be like…”

“What, like you?” I gestured around the room at the lot of them. “Yeah, I have an idea.”

“You can’t come with us,” he snapped again, like the decision had been made and I didn’t get any more of a say on the matter. “Not many people know about this place. You’ll be safer out here than out in the woods with us and besides, I don’t want to have to worry about another person on top of these three.”

“I got kicked out of my pack, attacked in the woods, and then I found you guys.” I stepped towards him. “You really think I’m just going to let you walk away from me like that? You said there were maybe a dozen of them out there. You think the four of you can take them on?”

“I do. And if not, do you really think you’re going to make the difference?” he pointed out, and I bristled with annoyance. I wasn’t going to be left behind. The thought of them all out there, fighting for everything they were worth, while I sat here and waited for them to return was infuriating even just in concept.

“You really think I’m not?” I threw back, and he raised his eyebrows – I thought I saw the briefest flash of pride in his eyes, like he appreciated the fight in me, but it vanished at once.

“You’re staying,” he replied firmly, and looked over at Anton for back-up. He knew as well as I did that if Anton gave the go-ahead for them to leave without me, there wouldn’t be much that any of us could do about it.

But when I saw the look on Anton’s face, I turned to Luke with a triumphant expression on mine.

“Are you serious right now?” Luke shot a look to Anton, imploring him to rethink. Anton shrugged grimly.

“I really think that if something goes wrong out there she’d rather fight to the death alongside us than be here to get discovered by a bunch of male shifters alone,” he pointed out.

It took me a second to realize what he was referring to, but as soon as I did, I felt a shiver run down my spine. The room fell silent for a second, as though we were all contemplating the horror of something like that happening – and he was right, too. If this was a collection of rogues without morals or rules or a pack leader to guide them, they could be not only dangerous but also cruel and ruthless. There was no doubt that I would rather die alongside them than face what those kind of wolves would have inflicted on me. I took a deep, shaky breath, and wondered what would have happened if one of those packs had come across me when I’d been alone in the woods all by myself.

The thought seemed to trouble Luke as much as it did me. He closed his eyes for a moment, pinching the bridge of his nose, and suddenly all the tension that had built between the two of us seemed to leak away just like that. He took a step towards me and caught me by the shoulders, looking intently into my eyes. I was so aware of his hands on me, the strength of them, the way they made me feel safe and endangered in the same instant.

I could get used to this.

“Please, just stay behind,” he asked, and there was more than a hint of distress to his voice. “Where we can protect you.”

“You can’t protect me if you’re nowhere to be seen,” I pointed out. “I’m better coming with you, trust me.”

He pressed his lips together, his grip tight on my shoulders. He was still shirtless, and I couldn’t help letting my eyes drift down his body a little, lingering on the few tattoos he had. I wondered if he had done them himself – they certainly looked homemade. I wanted to trace the outlines of them with my fingers.

“Look, Luke, short of chaining me up here, you’re not going to get me to stay behind,” I said, raising my eyebrows at him. His eyes flashed with something, just for a second, and I knew he was thinking the same thing that I was – that maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad to be chained up here, under different circumstances. I could imagine Luke and me in that bed together, something strong to hold me down, him doing everything he could to convince me to see his point of view…

“You have to promise me something.” His gaze burned into mine, not helping the carnal direction my thoughts were already headed in. “If things go wrong out there, you run.”

“Run?”

“Run as far away as you can get,” he pressed. “I don’t care where you go or what you do – just get the fuck out of there and don’t look back. You understand me?”

“I understand you,” I murmured, swallowing hard. And I did.

But that didn’t mean I agreed. If things went wrong out there, I would fight alongside them, even if that meant losing my life – or worse. I had been so lost until they’d found me and brought me here, and I knew I would never find somewhere like it again. This was all I wanted. And I wasn’t going to walk away from it. Not without a fight.

I leaned forward and kissed him. Not hard, not deep, not passionate – just a brushing, soft kiss, one that was meant to assure him that I saw his point of view and loved that he cared. The rest of them were in the room, surrounding us, but I did it anyway, because that was what my gut and my heart led me to do. His mouth was still unyielding even as he slackened his grip on my arms, but the second I pulled back, he reached for me before curling into fists at his side. I saw a flash of something in his eyes again – that carnal desire that made my knees tremble.

“I just can’t handle the thought…”

He trailed off and looked up at me, as though he could communicate the words that way instead. I managed a reassuring smile.

“I promise I’ll be safe,” I murmured. “Really.” All would be well. This was just a precaution, and would likely turn out to be nothing. Even as I reassured myself, though, an icy nugget of fear had formed in my belly.

“We need to get going,” Anton announced, apparently satisfied with our acceptance. “Come on.”

And with that, the five of us shifted and sped into the snow and cold outside.